Trump v. CASA, Inc. Revisions: 6/27/25
The Supreme Court ruled that federal courts cannot issue 'universal injunctions' — orders that block the government from enforcing a law or policy against everyone in the country, not just the people who actually sued — scaling back three nationwide injunctions that had blocked President Trump's birthright citizenship executive order.
The decision sharply limits a legal tool courts have used for decades to quickly halt government policies across the board, without deciding whether the birthright citizenship order itself is constitutional.
How it got here: Three federal district courts issued universal injunctions blocking the executive order; three courts of appeals refused to stay them; the government filed emergency applications asking the Supreme Court for partial stays.
The Case in Depth
What happened
President Trump signed an executive order on his inauguration day declaring that certain children born in the United States — those whose mothers were not citizens or permanent residents, and whose fathers were also not citizens — would not be recognized as American citizens. Individuals, immigrant-rights organizations, and 22 states sued in three separate federal courts, each obtaining preliminary injunctions blocking enforcement of the order against anyone in the country, not just the named plaintiffs.
The question before the Court
Can a federal court bar the government from enforcing a policy against anyone in the country — or only against the people who actually filed the lawsuit?
The Court's answer
Yes — federal courts almost certainly cannot issue "universal injunctions" that bar the government from enforcing a law against everyone, not just the people who filed suit. The Court ruled that the Judiciary Act of 1789, which authorizes federal courts to exercise equitable power, limits that power to remedies available in English courts of equity at the time of the nation's founding. Because no English or early American court ever issued anything like a universal injunction — and such orders did not even appear in American courts until roughly 1963 — they fall outside what Congress authorized.
The Court therefore scaled back the three injunctions to cover only plaintiffs with standing to sue in each case, leaving the constitutional question about birthright citizenship entirely unresolved. The district courts must now craft narrower injunctions that give each plaintiff complete relief without extending protection to everyone else in the country.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
People who believe a government policy violates their rights must now be a named plaintiff in a lawsuit — or be part of a formally certified class action — to receive court protection. Those who never sue can be subject to a policy a court has already found likely unconstitutional. This changes how quickly and broadly federal courts can halt controversial executive orders and federal laws.
What changes now
The three cases return to their respective district courts, which must move expeditiously to tailor the preliminary injunctions so they protect only the plaintiffs with standing, while still giving each complete relief. The broader constitutional question — whether the birthright citizenship executive order violates the Fourteenth Amendment or federal statute — remains entirely open and will be decided in the ongoing litigation in those courts and on appeal.
What this does not decide
The Court explicitly did not decide whether the birthright citizenship executive order is constitutional or violates the Nationality Act. It also left open whether the Administrative Procedure Act's "set aside" remedy operates differently from an injunction, and declined to address whether the states have standing to sue on behalf of their residents' citizenship rights.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Majority (6). Justice Barrett (author), joined by Justice Roberts, Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Kavanaugh.
Dissent (3). Justice Sotomayor (author), joined by Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson.
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas agreed with the majority and wrote separately to warn that lower courts must not use the 'complete relief' principle as a backdoor to revive universal injunctions in disguise. He stressed that complete relief is a ceiling on what courts can award — not a mandate requiring the most sweeping remedy possible — and that traditional equitable limits may sometimes require plaintiffs to accept less than full relief.
Concurrence — Justice Alito
Justice Alito concurred but flagged two potential workarounds that could practically undo today's ruling: lax enforcement of third-party standing rules (which could let states sue on behalf of their residents and obtain relief as broad as a universal injunction) and hasty class certification under Rule 23. He urged courts to apply both requirements rigorously, warning that otherwise the universal injunction will return 'from the grave' under another name.
Concurrence — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh wrote to explain that even after today's decision, the Supreme Court itself will remain the ultimate decider of the interim legal status of major federal laws and executive actions during the years before a final merits ruling. He argued that national uniformity on significant legal questions often requires this Court — not district courts — to settle the interim status of contested policies, and that the Court should embrace rather than avoid that responsibility.
Dissent — Justice Sotomayor
“No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates.”The dissent's warning that limiting injunctions to named plaintiffs leaves constitutional rights unprotected for those who have not sued.
Justice Sotomayor argued that the birthright citizenship executive order is patently unconstitutional under the Constitution's text, history, Supreme Court precedent, federal statute, and over a century of executive practice — making emergency relief to the government unconscionable. She contended that universal injunctions have deep roots in bills of peace and early American equity practice, that the majority's rigid historical test misunderstands equity's inherently flexible nature, and that the ruling creates a 'zone of lawlessness' where the government may violate constitutional rights of anyone who has not yet filed a personal lawsuit.
Dissent — Justice Jackson
Justice Jackson wrote separately to describe what she saw as an existential threat to the rule of law: the majority authorizes the government to operate in two zones — one where courts can force compliance with the Constitution (for named plaintiffs) and one where the Executive may violate constitutional rights at will (for everyone else who hasn't sued). She argued that federal courts exist not merely to protect individual plaintiffs but to enforce the Constitution universally, and that restricting judicial power this way is incompatible with a republic governed by law rather than by executive discretion. Read the full dissent →
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court started from the rule in Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo v. Alliance Bond Fund (a 1999 decision on equitable authority) that federal courts under the Judiciary Act of 1789 can use only equitable remedies 'traditionally accorded by courts of equity' at the nation's founding — not remedies invented later, however useful they might seem.
- Looking at English equity practice at the time of the founding, the Court found that courts of chancery issued only party-specific remedies: the general rule was that 'you cannot have an injunction except against a party to the suit,' and the Chancellor could not bind people who were not before the court.
- Universal injunctions — orders blocking enforcement of a policy against anyone, not just the named parties — had no equivalent in founding-era English or American courts. They first appeared in American courts around 1963 and remained rare until the late 20th century. That centuries-long absence, the Court held, settles the question of statutory authority.
- Respondents argued that 'bills of peace' — an old English equitable device for group litigation — gave courts authority to issue universal injunctions. The Court rejected this: bills of peace involved small, cohesive groups and bound all absent members in the group, whereas universal injunctions protect only the named parties while benefiting everyone. Bills of peace evolved into the modern class action (governed by Rule 23), not the universal injunction.
- The 'complete relief' principle — which allows courts to award all relief necessary to make a plaintiff whole — does not justify universal injunctions. Making a plaintiff whole does not require extending protection to people who never sued. Prohibiting enforcement of the order against one pregnant plaintiff's child fully remedies her injury; extending the injunction nationwide adds nothing to her relief.
- Because the injunctions likely exceeded the Judiciary Act's grant of equitable authority, the government showed the irreparable harm required for a stay: being improperly blocked from enforcing its policies against nonparties. The balance of equities favored the government because narrower, plaintiff-specific injunctions would still fully protect every plaintiff who had standing to sue.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo, S.A. v. Alliance Bond Fund, Inc. (527 U.S. 308)
Reaffirmed as the governing rule that federal equitable authority is limited to remedies available at the nation's founding.